world.
This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his
mouth, or laughs at anything that passes, he is constantly told by his
uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us
fools; but we old men know you are."[83]

The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the
neighbouring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about
Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.[84] He
has about ten distichs of "Hudibras" without book, and never leaves the
club till he has applied them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or
any town frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the
present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.

For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am
something respected by others, though at the same time I understand by
their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal
of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch that the Major
sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the
philosopher: and Sir Jeoffrey no longer ago than last night, upon a
dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe
out of his mouth, and cried, "What does the scholar say to it?"

Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; but I did not
come last night till half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped
the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about
three-quarters after six; I found also, that my good friend, the
bencher, had already spent three of his distichs, and only waiting an
opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the
couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic."[85] At my entrance
into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I
found that the bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack
Ogle.

I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffrey, to show his goodwill
towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire.
I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who
endeavour to oblige me; and therefore in requital for his kindness, and
to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could, to
put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does
with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for
several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his
severa